Your 100 Greatest Spurs Moments: 99

Tottenham Hotspur (Spurs) Football Club is located in North London. The club is also known as Spurs. Tottenham's home ground is White Hart Lane. The club motto is Audere est Facere (To dare is to do).

Welcome to number 99 of our new series Your 100 Greatest Spurs Moments, a collection of memories from you, the fans.

We intend to run the series every Wednesday through the season.

Number 99: Spurs v Villa, White Hart Lane, August 1978

A TICKER TAPE RECEPTION FOR OSSIE AND RICKY

With our first home game of the 2002-03 season against Villa just around the corner, we've turned the clock back 24 years and memories of another seasonal opener against the Midlanders at the Lane.

This was the first home game of the 1978-79 season and N17 was the centre of the footballing world's attention as our two amazing summer captures, Argentinian World Cup winners Ricky Villa and Ossie Ardiles, ran out at home in Division One for the very first time.

In true Argentinian 78 style, we welcomed the pair with a ticker tape reception all around the ground.

Pete Abbott, our Voice of the Lane, remembers it well. "I was standing on the Shelf and we had to get to the ground early because it was absolutely packed," recalls Pete.

"It was such an exciting time for the club. Foreign stars were rare in English football at that time and we'd signed two players who we'd all seen in the World Cup that summer.

"I remember as they ran out the ticker tape from all around the ground. Everyone had taken a newspaper in to tear up and throw. It was fantastic.

"The only other thing I remember is that Villa played us off the park! It was the start of the team that went on to win the league and the European Cup."

Spurs fans Anthony Bloomfield, Dave Meader and Bradley Woodward all e-mailed us with this day as their greatest Spurs moment.

Here are their memories.

Anthony Bloomfield: "I'm not sure that many would count this as a great moment but it is one that stands out in my memory for many reasons, nostalgia, excitement, the dawning of a new era and just plain old tribal bonding. It was the first home game for Ossie at the Lane, and the roar of the fans followed by the incredible tickatape reception that was given to him that day. There was so much excitement and hope for us that day and a new start in the first division after having just been promoted."

Dave Meader (named after Dave Mackay, born the day after we beat Chelsea in the 1967 FA Cup Final): "How about the ticker tape welcome for Ossie and Ricky WHL debut? The game itself was a 4-1 defeat to Villa but never let that get in the way!"

Bradley Woodward: "This one might be a little bit different - but for me it was a feeling that I have never experienced at the Lane either before or since. The league debut of Ricky Villa and Osvaldo Ardiles when they were paraded in front of the Spurs supporters to a ticker tape welcome following their succesful World Cup. Both players were presented with courtesy cars prior to the game and the atmosphere was awesome. We could not believe that we had two World Cup stars turning out for us. It was ground breaking."

Look out for out next Greatest Spurs Moment, coming next week...

This is not a countdown of your greatest moments in descending order according to votes - numbers 100-10 are being picked at random from all of the memories collected. However, we will publish the top 10 most popular moments in terms of votes when we reach that stage of the series...